Monday afternoon Portland history lesson via Cafe Unknown blogger Dan Haneckow. He’s dug up info about an interesting historical site: the first Portland building ever demolished to build a parking lot.
The building was an 1880 four-story commercial space on the north east corner of Second and Washington, designed by Warren H. Williams. Haneckow was researching the Labbe brothers and found an Oregonian article from 1934 that waxed nostalgic with the news that the building would be demolished. “What was missing was the march of progress sentiments with a description of the upcoming modern replacement,” writes Haneckow, via email. He got suspicious and found some aerial photographs of the corner from 1934 and 1939 areal photographs, both showing that there was never replacement building on the site. It’s been a surface parking lot ever since.
Sure, there were other, more famous buildings demolished to make parking lots (like the Portland Hotel) but, damn it, there’s some distinction in being the first “In context of the loss of Portland’s unique, original, iron-fronted version of a European downtown, it is significant because so many of its buildings were torn down to make surface parking lots,” writes Haneckow.
The mural that borders the parking lot today is… perfect.
- Dan Haneckow
I feel like now is the appropriate time to mention this:
http://ihatemurals.tumblr.com/
I park in that lot sometimes. I’m going to hell.
This is a sad tale, I agree. That part of town has our oldest and some of our best architecture.
The first time I visited here from SF, one of the first things I noticed was the abundance of open space parking lots downtown.
When is Portland going to make a law banning surface lots in downtown? It’s costing us millions in property tax revenue (and unquantifiable amounts in livability), just for lazy drivers and their ugly cars.
At least there are fewer than there used to be. Some have been built on and a few have actually become parks. Pioneer Square is an example. What was worse was watching “urban renewal” destroy viable cohesive neighborhoods for a freeway that never came to be, with no regard for the occupants or the vibrant communities that existed there.
At least there are fewer than there used to be. Some have been built on, and a few have actually become parks. Pioneer Square is an example. What was worse was watching “urban renewal” demolish viable neighborhoods with vibrant ethnic neighborhoods to construct poorly designed, pedestrian unfriendly office parks and a freeway that never came into being (thank goodness). The only good thing that came out of that debacle was a lively and productive debate that led to Portland making some sound decisions about what kind of city it wanted to be. At least until the developers got hold of the old warehouse district, which had been assumed not to need protection because of the nature of the area. Oops. A big loophole for avaricious developers. It is now the part of town I hate most.
I love Smirk’s history updates.
Downtown is dying. Who needs commercial office real estate anymore?
Our building lease is up in ~5 years, we’re out of here. Clients want to meet us we can rent a conference room somewhere dt.